LG’s Blu-ray/HD DVD Hits UK – Costs £1,000 April 19, 2007
Read more Blu-ray , Gizmodo UK , HD DVD , Movies
Cough-cough-choking. Sorry. That was my first reaction to the confirmation of our worst fears, that LG would simply take out an easer and rub out the ‘$’ sign and replace it with ‘£’ sign on its Super Multi Blue BH-100 standalone Blu-ray/HD DVD player. Well, it did.
The machine got its official UK airing yesterday and the £1,000 was confirmed for when it hits the streets in mid-May. This is a bizarre position for LG to take, and it has admitted that the price means it will only appeal to 'early adopters'.
The company could have gotten away with this if it had launched the machine here at the same time it did in the US, a few months back, i.e. pre-PS3.
Here’s the new math: a PS3 (Blu-ray) and a reduced price Toshiba HD-E1 (HD DVD) will set you back around £750, or less. For that you get a next-gen gaming console and a HD DVD player that can access the interactive features [something the BH100 has trouble with] thrown in, for the price.
LG argues it’s the only one that can do it all in one box. I don’t know about you but saving a tiny bit of spare space around my TV is not worth £250.-Martin Lynch
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
Comments
i could bye a sony ps3 with blu-ray and a xbox 360 with a add on hd dvd player for that why so expentsive LG
let me get this right, you can buy this for £1000 in uk or $1000 is us? The current exchange rate is about $2=£1 so we in the uk are paying double? import it from US and get a mains converter.
Some bright spark is going to work out how to use the HD-DVD in the linux PS3 soon, I reckon. At any rate this is a lot of money to pony up when there's hardly any films around.